1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to garments carrying electrode/sensors used in the electrical treatment and monitoring of human and animal bodies. More specifically, the invention relates to wearable garments having incorporated electrode/sensors that can be attached and detached readily for replacement and/or cleaning without undue effort and without adverse effect on the electrical connections between the sensor and the garment and related equipment such as monitoring devices and power supplies.
2. Description of the Invention
Sensing and treatment devices for contacting the surface of the skin are well-known in the art. In the previous disclosure of garments having one or more incorporated electrical sensors, there is no disclosure or suggestion that the sensor may be mounted so as to be detachable from the garment to facilitate cleaning, replacing or disposing of sensors that have been used. It will be recognized, readily, that such replacement or cleaning of previously used sensors will often be required to meet the high levels of hygiene and sterility demanded by contemporary medical standards and procedures. Similarly, there is no disclosure or suggestion in the prior art that sensors may be mounted for easy separation from, and reattachment to, a wearable garment while allowing the connectable electrical circuits for the sensors to remain in place in the garment.
These limitations of the prior art are overcome in the present invention by allowing sensors to be conveniently and detachably attached to the inner surface of a wearable garment, such as a shirt or a jacket, while the electrical circuits that are separably coupled to the sensors and that serve, in turn, to couple desired apparatus to the sensors, remains in place, with the body of the garment.
The present invention discloses a garment with sensors having a contact surface formed of flexible conductive silicone backed by, and electrically coupled to, one half of an electrically conductive separable fastener such as hook-and-loop material of the type commercially available under the Trademark VELCRO. The hook and loop material is formed of any suitable, flexible and conductive material of conventional type, that can be incorporated into the body of a wearable, washable or otherwise cleanable, garment.
A mating part of the separable fastener, for example, hook-and-loop material similarly formed of flexible conductive material, is attached to the inner surface of the garment in a desired location, and is electrically connected to durable electrical conductors incorporated into the body of the garment via printing or weaving of conductive fibers, for example. By engaging the two parts of the separable fastener, the sensor is detachably coupled to the garment as well as to the incorporated conductors, and the incorporated conductors then are capable of conducting electrical/electronic signals to and/or from the sensor surface via the fastener.
A second separable fastener arrangement at the other end of the conductor permits the conductor to be coupled detachably to external monitoring or treatment equipment of any suitable and desired type. This second fastener may be the same as or different from the separable fastener associated with the detachable electrode at the other end of the conductor. That is, one half-section of a flexible separable fastener of electrically conductive material is associated with the end of the conductor remote from the detachable electrode; it may be incorporated into the body structure of the wearable garment on either the inner or outer surface, or it may simply be attached to the remote end of the conductor free of the garment, if desired. This second fastener arrangement is completed by a mating fastener half-section of conductive material, having means to electrically couple the conductor to desired equipment when it the two half-sections are engaged with each other.